Sunday, March 21, 2010

It's Fun to Use Words You Don't Understand

Stephen Harper went back to work and I couldn't care less. Things in this country are running the same Ostrich-like, head in a hole in the ground, way they normally do. The only really exciting point of late is that apparently if you are a Conservative MP, former Conservative MP or if your wife is a Conservative Cabinet Member, you get a free pass on your DUI and drug-possession problem.

Also, in this God-forsaken, redneck-infested, backwards-thinking hellhole province of progress, wealth and abundance, apparently the news doesn't reach the Premier's office. At least not the new-fangled kind with moving pictures and such. Really? Really?! The leader of the Province - a province bathing in petrochemical dollars - has not seen the photos of the 1600 dead ducks on a tailings pond in Fort McMurray?!! Really?! Eight-year-olds with mommy's cell phone can download them and show them to their friends. But apparently, according to an aide, it wouldn't be appropriate for Steady Eddie to view them. Why? Might they upset him, cause him to be nauseas over lunch? Might he actually have to direct his Environmental Review Board and the Provincial Environment Ministry to put some standards and regulations in place that, oh I don't know, actually protect the environment?

I'm not saying turn the taps off. Just conduct business in the Province as if there are 3million people depending on the water, air and land in and around the Province for their survival.

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Changing topic here.

I wrote a while back about the new Retards on Parade Tea-Party movement. One thing I forgot to point out is the incorrect use of some terminology.

Right-wing, nut-case, Christian-fundamentalist, Conservatives (aka Republicans) seem to love bandying about the terms "Socialist" and "Fascist" interchangeably, with abandon. I've seen Obama referred to as Hitler (the King of the Fascists) and as a Socialist, by the same people, on the same protest sign, at the same march. The only problem, is that these people are, well, stupid. No, wait they're not stupid. Ok, they're not just stupid. They're also uneducated and totally sucked in by what they hear on Fox News - those guys screw this up all the time.

So, as I'm an educator (no really I am), I'm going to educate.

A Socialist is a left-wing, group-thinker, who wants to create a level playing field for the entire population. A Socialist feels that all people should be treated as equals, that the rich should support the poor and that the State should provide for the needs of the people. Socialists are generally inclusive of other cultures and races; given that an expanding population creates a bigger tax base from which the State can draw to provide for the population's needs. A Socialist has an interest in seeing other countries succeed economically; understanding that (sort of) what comes around, goes around. This country (Canada) under Trudeau, in the heydays of CIDA spending like drunken sailors, was pretty darned Socialist.

A Fascist on the other hand is, um... ok Tea Party folks... I don't quite know how to say this but... well, Fascists are you. See a Fascist is an ultra-right-wing Conservative who yearns for days gone by. Fascists believe that the individual (at least the chosen individual) is boss. They want everything to not just remain the same, but to revert some fanciful time that never existed. American Tea Partiers dream of an all-white nation, free from gay people and high taxes. They truly believe that the current government is acting against the will of the people. They believe in the resurrection (not the one in the big funny book of Jesus, the one that is surely coming to save them). They believe that people from other countries should stay in those other countries. Not to be cliched or overly-dramatic but the modern Tea Partiers are one madman away from Germany in 1933.

So, new-generation lunatics, call Obama all the names you want. Just call him the right names.

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